Generation of multiple femtosecond Stokes and anti-Stokes frequency components in an impulsively excited Raman medium

Summary form only given. In the femtosecond interaction regime, SRS is affected considerably by the influence of fast electronic nonlinearity leading to self-phase modulation, parametric frequency generation, shift of the Stokes and anti-Stokes frequency components etc. To provide sufficiently high values of the Raman gain on the fs-time scale, one needs pumping at an intensity level of several tens of TW/cm/sup 2/ which is often close to the threshold intensity for self-focusing and white-light continuum generation. In this paper we show for the first time that the long vibrational dephasing time in molecular gases (>1 ps) makes it possible to realize fs-SRS with temporally delayed laser pulses thereby eliminating the above mentioned nonlinear effects of self-action.